


Baby, Baby

by Sholio



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Banter, F/M, Gen, High School, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 19:00:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12091362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: "No," said Mrs. Kurzweiler, the sex-ed teacher for the greater Hawkins-area school district, looking down her nose at Nancy over her glasses. "No, you cannot claim shared credit on the Parenting Enrichment Experience project, Miss Wheeler. I'm surprised you're even asking, given the nature of the assignment."





	Baby, Baby

**Author's Note:**

> I think the early 1980s is actually a bit early for that sex-ed thing where students have to carry around a fake baby or -- originally -- an egg to simulate taking care of a real baby (and 16/17-year-olds are probably a bit old for it anyway), but I don't care, I'm making them do it anyway.
> 
> For my trope-bingo square "In another man's shoes."

Nancy was, to no one's surprise, extremely conscientious about taking care of her new baby.

It didn't matter that her baby was an egg, or more accurately an eggshell with a smiley face drawn on it in black laundry marker, or that she hadn't even decided if she _wanted_ kids when she grew up. (Not now. Definitely not now.) It didn't matter because all she had to do was carry around an egg for two weeks and write a report on it. This assignment was a guaranteed "A", which meant she wasn't about to do anything to jeopardize that "A".

So she made her egg a cozy little nest, reinforced with cardboard and lined with an old dish towel, that she could tuck into her bag without worrying about crushing it, and she kept a meticulous diary of all her egg-related experiences so that writing the final report would be a snap.

"Studying at lunch?" Steve's voice asked, and Nancy looked up from her note-taking as he plunked his tray down across from her. "Say it ain't so."

"Baby diary," Nancy explained, showing him the cover of her notebook, where she'd neatly taped a baby picture clipped from one of her mom's parenting magazines. A carton of eggs from a cooking magazine was collaged in, like in the scrapbook pages she and Barb used to make of their favorite celebrities when they were in junior high, fastening the collages into the backs of their school binders -- but she quickly pushed away the thought of Barb, swallowing it down in a way that had become well practiced by now. She was taking extra care with the notebook in the hopes of getting extra credit.

"Are you seeing this, Byers?" Steve appealed down the table. "This isn't normal, right? Hey, man, back me up here."

With a little coaxing (mostly from Nancy, but not entirely), Jonathan had taken to sitting with them at lunch, though probably in a nod to their respective differences in the school pecking order, he sat at the very end of the table with a noticeable distance in between, as if to provide them (and himself) with a certain amount of plausible deniability.

The distance was also a help at avoiding questions he didn't want to answer. He just shrugged and poked at his yogurt with a spoon. Nancy frowned at him, but he wouldn't meet her eyes. Jonathan had good days and bad days -- well, they all did, since last November, but she thought it was easier to see on Jonathan: sometimes it was easy to coax a smile out of him, and sometimes impossible to get him to say a word. 

"Anyway," Steve said, with his good cheer undented, "I wanted to ask you if you could do a teeny, tiny favor for me, Nance, like the world's most awesome girlfriend that you are."

"If you ask me to take care of your baby for you one more time, Steve Harrington, I won't be responsible for my actions."

"Probably an accurate preview of what your married life is going to be like," Jonathan murmured, hunched over his tray.

"I heard that, Byers," Steve said, while Nancy felt herself blushing. 

"What makes you think I'd be better than you at taking care of a baby, anyway, _Steve_?" she asked, opening her notebook again. "Because I'm a girl?"

"No, because you have a little brother and sister, and I don't. And because you're good at everything."

"He's got you there," the peanut gallery muttered from the other end of the table.

"So help me, Byers, don't make me come down there ..."

"It's an egg, Steve," Nancy said. "It's nothing at all like taking care of a real baby. Just take it with you."

"To team practice? It'll get crushed."

"I'm surprised you haven't already sat on it by accident or something."

"Hey," Steve said defensively. "It's sex ed, the one class in which I can definitely expect to pull an A, which is going to make up for inevitably failing Calc."

"I told you I'd tutor you if you want."

The tips of his ears turned pink. "I don't need tutoring, I just need to not break my egg. It's like babysitting, right? People don't keep their kids with them 24/7; that'd be weird. I just need a babysitter for an hour or two. Eggsitter, whatever."

There was a tiny, choked snort from Jonathan's direction, and when Nancy darted a look at him, she saw that the hair flopping down over his face as he hunched over his tray didn't quite conceal a small grin.

Steve held out a hopeful hand with the egg nestled in his palm. "Babysit my egg, Nancy? Please. Pleasepleaseplease ..."

"Oh, all _right._ For a couple of hours. But that's it." Nancy opened up her bag and tucked Steve's egg beside hers.

"Awww. Look at 'em. They look so happy there. You know, Nance, it's not any harder to take care of two eggs than one --"

"It's also cheating. If you don't come back and get your egg as soon as you're done, I'm making an omelet. Speaking of which, aren't you going to be late?"

Steve checked his watch. "Damn. Gotta run." He crammed half a grilled cheese sandwich into his mouth, and said indistinctly around it, "You're the best, Nance."

She let her fingers trail across his as he got up, and then wrote the last note in her egg journal and closed it. Her meatloaf had congealed and she poked at it with her fork. Steve had the right idea, going for the grilled cheese.

"How's it going with _your_ egg?" she asked Jonathan, who was still hunched up, poking at his mostly-untouched lunch. Jonathan should be good at this assignment, she thought -- at least if he cared enough to be. Jonathan was the most careful person in the world about things that mattered to him.

He shrugged, but without Steve there, was a little less reticent about answering. "Not sure. I couldn't find it last night. Pretty sure Will took it."

"Your little brother stole your baby?" Nancy blinked. "... your egg, I mean? Why?"

"For their game, I think. He said they needed something to play the part of a gelatinous cube, they lost the Rubik's cube they used last time, and your mom wouldn't let them use real Jello."

"I ... have no idea what any of that means."

Jonathan shrugged. "Me neither, but I figure that's where the egg went. I meant to get it back from him this morning, but with everyone running around trying to get out the door, and Mom working double shifts to make up for, uh, everything that happened before Christmas, I just forgot. Though," he added thoughtfully, "Will was being awfully squirrelly."

"Do you think the kids broke it?"

"Dunno. I don't really care. It's just an egg."

And the loss of a good grade in the class, she thought, but Jonathan probably cared about that less than making his brother happy. 

But of course the perfect solution was right there in her bag. She grinned and opened it back up. "Want a replacement? I happen to have a spare."

Jonathan stared warily at the egg she placed neatly on the edge of his tray. "Are you _trying_ to get Steve Harrington to beat me up?"

"He won't do that," Nancy said. "Anyway, it's his own fault for trying to make me do his homework for him. It's not like they're labeled. He'll never know this one wasn't yours all along."

 

***

 

"Byers."

There was something about Steve's casual drawl that still made Jonathan's shoulders want to hunch up around his ears, especially when he'd just come out the door of the school to find Steve lounging against the wall, waiting for him. They didn't hang outside of class if Nancy wasn't around. There was still a part of him waiting for the other shoe to drop, the part of him that had dealt with fake friendliness before, from kindergarten onward. He'd never had good defenses against other kids pretending to be his friend only to make fun of him later. Open, if cautious, friendliness from someone who'd actively bullied him set all his defenses in overdrive.

But Steve merely fell into step with him. "I hear you have something of mine."

"She said she wouldn't tell," Jonathan said defensively, before realizing he'd just ratted out Nancy. He closed his mouth.

"She didn't," Steve said. "Nancy's left eyebrow does this twitching thing when she lies. You should probably know this, come to think of it."

"I don't think we should be talking about her behind her back."

"Yeah, well, ethics lesson aside, do you still have my egg or did you break it already?"

"I have it." Jonathan stopped to take it carefully out of his camera bag, where it had been tucked on top of a piece of foam meant for camera cushioning, and held it out. Steve started to take it, then paused.

"Hey, this isn't my egg."

Jonathan stared at him as if he'd grown a second head. "What do you mean, it's not your egg?"

"Mine had a little freckle right under the happy face." This didn't make Jonathan's stare any less incredulous. "... which I only noticed," Steve went on, his face beginning to flush, "because there was nothing else to do in English class yesterday except stare at it ... I mean, it was that or listen to Mr. Frankel drone on about diagramming sentences ... Anyway, the point is, Nancy must've given you her egg instead of mine. Either that or you painted a face on a new one."

"What does it matter?" Jonathan asked incredulously. "It's still an egg. Take it, I don't care."

"If this is your egg, it's weird. If it's Nancy's egg, it's even weirder." Steve winced, and Jonathan choked on a stifled laugh at the look on his face. "I think that's the worst sentence I've ever said."

"At least you've been paying attention in class," Jonathan couldn't help pointing out. "If you know what you just said, I mean."

"Stop. No. Stop."

"Anyway." Jonathan poked the egg at him, but gently, not wanting to crack it. "Are you going to take this?"

Steve waved him off. "No, keep it. I'll just get mine back from Nance. Or get that one from you later, if she won't give hers to me. Hers, I mean, which is technically mine."

"So, wait, I'm supposed to take care of your egg for you?"

"It's not going to hatch, Byers," Steve said. "Just put it on a shelf at home and don't worry about it, as long as the teach sees you carrying it around school."

"The last time I did that, my little brother stole it."

"Oh, is that why Nancy gave you that one?"

Steve looked genuinely curious, which made Jonathan's shoulders want to hunch up again. He shrugged and tucked the egg back into his camera case. "If you don't want it," he mumbled.

"Not now. Maybe later." 

 

***

 

"Is Steve making you take care of his egg?" Nancy demanded, setting down her tray beside Jonathan's with enough force that her carton of milk wobbled dangerously.

"Uh ... I think he gave it to me?" Jonathan said, looking up from his chicken nuggets. "Sort of. Actually, I'm not sure."

"That idiot." Nancy stole a nugget off his plate and chewed vindictively. "He knows _I_ won't do it, so he's making you do it. Don't let him take advantage of you, Jonathan."

"He didn't really _force_ me," Jonathan said, and privately wondered what the hell he was doing defending Steve Harrington. "He just said he doesn't want it back."

"He doesn't?"

"Except maybe he might," Jonathan said, and Nancy buried her face in her hands.

"I feel like I'm being discussed behind my back." Steve had approached their table unnoticed; now he was hovering, looking almost unsure about sitting down. Jonathan looked up at him and the thought crept uncertainly into his brain that Steve ... Steve felt excluded when he and Nancy were talking, just the two of them. Which he recognized only because that was exactly how he felt when Steve and Nancy went off into their own little couple-world.

Except he and Nancy weren't dating. Nancy was Steve's girlfriend. So Steve had absolutely no business giving them a look that wasn't _precisely_ hurt-puppy-left-out-in-the-rain, but was definitely somewhere in the general vicinity of it.

"Steve Harrington," Nancy began.

"Ooh, the full name," Steve said. "That's not a good sign." He smiled, but he still looked uncertain. At least he went ahead and set his tray down on the table. Otherwise Jonathan might have ended up in the incredibly awkward position of inviting him to sit down at the table that had been his and Nancy's table before Jonathan started joining them there.

"I'm not angry at you," Nancy said. "... exactly. Where's your egg?"

"I'm starting to understand what it is about these things that makes them stand in for babies," Steve said. "Ever since Mrs. Kurzweiler gave them to us, all we can talk about is the eggs. How's the egg? Is your egg all right? Is that a crack?" He picked up a hard-boiled egg off the edge of his tray. "Look, I brought a friend along to scare the kids into behaving. Wait'll they find out what happens to bad eggs."

Nancy covered her mouth for a moment before she managed to get a straight face again. "Steve, are you making Jonathan parent your egg?"

" _My_ egg? No. _You_ have my egg and you won't give it back."

"Good _grief."_ Nancy reached into her bag, opened the top of the neatly taped cardboard box so the carefully cushioned egg could be seen inside, and set the whole thing on the edge of Jonathan's tray. "There you go. Now you have an egg and I don't. Happy?"

"Naughty egg, making Mommy and Daddy fight," Steve told it. He tipped the box onto its side. "Now watch what happens to bad eggs, Jimmy." He tapped the hard-boiled egg briskly on the edge of his tray and began to peel it. "Look, I'm taking apart his cousin _right in front of him."_

"You've just lost egg-parenting privileges," Nancy said, snatching the box back.

"Hold him up so he can get a better look. Hey, little guy, this is what's going to happen to you if you don't behave." He took a large bite out of the hard-boiled egg.

Jonathan finally lost his battle to contain his laughter, dropped his head on the table, and succumbed to a fit of quiet giggles.

"We broke Jonathan," he heard Steve say, but there was suppressed laughter in his voice too.

"I'm fine," Jonathan choked out. He sat up, wiping at his eyes, and found both of them grinning at him. "I'm fine. You two are ..." And he stopped there, because he really didn't know how to finish that sentence. "Look, Steve, you can have the egg back. Here." He got it out of his bag and put it carefully on the edge of Steve's tray. "I really don't care. I'm probably failing this class anyway."

"You're flunking human sexuality?" Steve said. "That's the saddest thing I ever heard."

"I can make you another one, Jonathan," Nancy said earnestly. "I'll just get up extra early and get one of our eggs and blow it out for you -- shut _up,_ Steve. That's what it's _called._ "

"I didn't say anything," Steve said, sounding slightly choked.

"Anyway --" Nancy dropped her voice, as if expecting the cafeteria to be full of teachers' spies. "-- with a happy face on it, it'll look exactly like the old one. No one will know."

"Nancy Wheeler, suggesting cheating on a test?" Steve said. "Now I've heard everything. I can die happy."

"It's not a test," Nancy said, her eyes darting around. "It's a -- a project. And it's not fair for Jonathan to fail it just because he gave his egg to someone else."

"Here, you can have it back," Steve said, putting the egg on the edge of Jonathan's tray. "I don't care either."

"Am I the only person around here who cares about getting good grades?" Nancy asked despairingly.

"It's only, I guess, ten or fifteen percent of our grade anyway," Jonathan said.

"You can't just go around _failing assignments!_ "

 

***

 

"No," said Mrs. Kurzweiler, the sex-ed teacher for the greater Hawkins-area school district, looking down her nose at Nancy over her glasses. "No, you cannot claim shared credit on the Parenting Enrichment Experience project, Miss Wheeler. I'm surprised you're even asking, given the nature of the assignment."

"But, Mrs. Kurzweiler," Nancy protested. She clasped her hands in her lap and tried to look as demure as possible. "Remember, before we started the egg assignment, we did that entire week on the importance of a two-parent household, and we talked about how childhood development is influenced by proper role models being in the home early?" And she still remembered how Jonathan had ducked his head, not wanting to look at anyone, like he thought the words Single Parent Family were branded onto his skin. "I think it's not setting a good example that we're supposed to raise our eggs by ourselves. We should find a partner to help us."

"The entire point of the assignment, Miss Wheeler, is to impress upon you that you cannot carry on with your teenybopper lifestyle if you are raising a baby _alone."_

"Of course, I understand, but ..." Nancy swallowed and looked ceilingward for inspiration. Her eye fell on the numerous parenting books on the shelves around Mrs. Kurzweiler's desk. "What if the reports we're writing on the project show a -- a better understanding of the responsibilities inherent in raising a child and a -- comparison between the burdens of parenting our egg by itself and doing it with a partner to help?"

"I can't have you _partnering_ for an assignment in _Human Sexuality,_ Miss Wheeler, surely you can't expect to --"

"But it's not just one partner, it's two partners," Nancy said quickly. "I mean, my study group. Of course I wouldn't suggest anything inappropriate."

"Oh. Well. I like the way you think, Miss Wheeler. Let me think about it."

 

***

 

"Okay, so first of all," Nancy began, the next day, as she plunked her tray down at the table where the boys were already sitting, "I talked to Mrs. Kurzweiler and she agreed to give us joint credit on the project."

"How does she do it?" Steve appealed to Jonathan. " _How?_ It's like black magic. If you or I tried to talk a teacher into something like that, we'd probably just get detention if we were lucky. More likely they'd call our parents."

Nancy smiled triumphantly. "We just have to write a group paper on our experiences with single parenthood versus co-parenting."

This announcement fell into a crystal clear silence. 

"Co-parenting?" Jonathan said eventually, not meeting Steve's eyes.

"Well, that's what Mrs. Kurzweiler called it. I talked her into letting us do the assignment with just two eggs because obviously three doesn't work if we're trying to prove our hypothesis that two people are better parents than just one; we have to share."

Jonathan had the twitchy feeling he usually got when the topic of single parenting came up, but it was tempered by curiosity. "There are three of us and two eggs. That doesn't divide evenly."

"I know. We'll just have to pass them around, that's all. Take turns."

"Does this mean you're writing our paper for us?" Steve asked.

"It's a group paper," Nancy sighed, "which obviously means I'll be doing most of the work."

Steve pumped his fist in the air. "We're totally getting an A on this," he told Jonathan.

"You're doing most of the work, though," Jonathan said to Nancy. "That isn't fair."

"It's fair as fair can be." She gently plonked the cardboard box containing her (or possibly Steve's) egg onto the edge of Steve's tray. "You two take care of our eggs for the next week while I write the paper. What's fairer than that?"

"Um," Steve said.

"Seahorses," Jonathan said. When both of them looked at him, he started to retreat into a huddle but uncoiled under the genuine warmth of the curiosity he was getting from both of them. "Uh ... male seahorses incubate the eggs?"

"Oooh." Nancy reached for her egg journal. "That's good. I can use that. As a metaphor, I mean."

"I think we've been conned," Steve said to Jonathan, grinning, and after a moment, Jonathan reluctantly -- but sincerely -- grinned back.

After pushing his fries around on his plate for a minute, he got up the nerve to say, "So, about calculus ... you're not doing so hot, right?"

Nancy glanced up from her writing and then looked back down at her notebook again.

"Calculus is stupid," Steve said. "The old man wanted me take at least one advanced math class. I don't know why I bothered; it's not like I'm going to use any of it ever. Might as well swallow my failure and go home."

"I took it last year and did okay. You want me to give you my old notes?"

After a long pause, Steve said, "Sure. If you were gonna throw them out anyway."

"I might need to explain what's on 'em. My handwriting is kind of a mess."

"Okay." Steve tapped his fork on the edge of his tray. "You want me to come over? Or you could bring 'em over to my place. Tomorrow night, maybe."

"Sure. Yeah. Uh, Will's gonna be home tomorrow, so maybe we'd better study at your place." It might be nice, Jonathan thought, to see what the inside of that house was like, rather than watching from the bushes. Also, Steve probably had better snacks than stale corn chips.

"Don't forget your eggs," Nancy said. She glanced up from her notes and flashed them both a brilliant grin. And some part of Jonathan melted a little -- at her, at both of them -- because these people (these pretty, brave, smart people) wanted him to sit with them at lunch. Wanted him to hang around.

He was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. But he was starting to, almost, believe that it might not.

"Seriously," Steve said, "you could just put it on a shelf for the next week."

"I am not writing that in my egg diary. Jonathan," she said, stabbing her pencil at him, "make sure he takes good care of his egg."

"You can count on me," Jonathan said, and he'd never meant anything quite so much.


End file.
